27 January 2021
On the tenth anniversary of the Arab revolutions, Nayla Mansour reflects on the entanglement of history and language, the need at times to "unlearn," and revolutionary potential as rooted only in the here and now.
Damascus
A lawyer representing Syrian victims of crimes against humanity in a German court talks to Al-Jumhuriya about the historic importance of the trial; where he thinks it has fallen short; and what it's like to be in the room while victims confront their former torturers.
Recent court testimony by a Syrian regime “gravedigger” reveals an organized, bureaucratic mass murder machine on a scale larger than previously understood.
From nuns in London to Sufi shaykhas in Damascus, Farrah Akbik recalls the women who shaped her childhood—and the dear friend who helped her escape them.
So powerful are Washington’s new sanctions on Syria that even some opponents of Assad are unsure about them. Our own Syrian reporters have a range of views, two of which are presented head-to-head in this article.
Given a rare permit to fly on a military plane from Aleppo to Damascus, our writer encountered soldiers, judges, relatives of high-ranking officials, and a mysterious group of Iranian passengers.
Damascus resident Karam Mansour writes a first-hand account of life in the now-empty Syrian capital, where militiamen patrol the streets, shops do business in secret, and the homeless have abruptly disappeared.
As Assad’s health minister smirks about the army “cleansing Syria of bacteria,” doctors in Damascus, Aleppo, and Idlib tell Al-Jumhuriya they are woefully ill-prepared to deal with a Coronavirus outbreak.
After last week’s arrest in France of a former “Army of Islam” spokesman, Orwa Khalife recounts the gruesome history of the militia, from kidnappings in the Damascus suburbs to ethnic cleansing in the Turkish border zone.
Alia Malek's often-powerful portrait of her Damascus home sheds light on the perils and pleasures of Syria's pre-war society, but also leaves questions unresolved, writes Eric Reidy.
Using videos of Western-style parties in Syria, the Assad regime has sought to portray itself as a defender of liberal modernity against benighted "terrorist" opponents. Yet these crude and dishonest propaganda efforts only underscore the oppression at the heart of Assad's state, writes Robin Jones.
Beaten, humiliated, then sent as cannon fodder to the ISIS frontlines: A former defector recounts his experience of “reconciliation” with the Assad regime, which appears more interested in punishing its defeated opponents than making peace with them.